SAN ANTONIO – January 13, 2021 – NASA has expanded Juno’s mission to study Jupiter through September 2025, expanding science’s goals to include the entire Jovian system, which has been up of the planet and the rings and branches. In addition to continuing to study the largest planet in our Solar System, NASA’s planetary orbiter revolves around three of the most interesting Jovian branches.
“Since its first orbit in 2016, Juno has delivered one publication after another about the operation inside this giant gas giant,” said Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute, Juno’s chief investigator . “With the extended mission, we will answer fundamental questions that arose during Juno’s main mission as we arrived outside the planet to study Jupiter’s ring system and the largest satellites.”
Proposed in 2003 and launched in 2011, Juno Jupiter arrived on July 4, 2016. The main mission operations will be completed in July 2021. The expanded mission includes an additional 42 orbits including a dense passage of Jupiter’s north pole wheels and flybys of Galilean moorland. Ganymede, Europa and Io, as well as the first comprehensive study of the Jupiter ring system.
The expanded mission represents an effective advancement for NASA’s Solar System analysis strategy. The data Juno collects contributes to the goals of the next generation of missions to the Jovian system – NASA’s Europa Clipper and ESA’s JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE). Juno’s study of the Jupiter Io volcanic moon addresses many scientific goals identified by the National Academy of Sciences for Io’s future researcher mission.
Expanded science initiatives extend Juno’s previous discoveries about Jupiter’s internal structure, internal magnetic field, magnetosphere and atmosphere, including the deep sensation, polar cyclones and auroras.
“With this expansion, Juno will become an ongoing mission of its own,” said Steve Levin, scientist of the Juno project at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). “Close-ups of the pole, radio occultations, satellite flybys, and focused magnetic field studies come together to create a new mission, the next logical step in our study of the Jovian system.”
For example, scientists focus on Jupiter’s enigmatic “Great Blue Spot,” a remote patch near the planet’s equator displaying an intense magnetic field, using high-resolution spatial magnetic probes during six flybys. As Juno’s orbit grows, multiple flybys of Ganymede (2), Europa (3), and Io (11) are projected on their way to multiple passages through Jupiter’s infectious rings.
The natural evolution of Juno’s polar orbit around the gas giant offers new science opportunities for which the extended mission takes advantage.
“The mission’s designers have done an amazing job curing an expanded mission that preserves the mission’s one most valuable resource – fuel,” said Ed Hirst, Juno project manager from NASA JPL. “Gravity helps multiple satellite flybys navigate our spacecraft through the Jovian system while providing a wealth of science opportunities.”
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JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages Juno’s mission for the principal investigator, Dr. Scott J. Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the group’s Science Mission Steering Group in Washington. Lockheed Martin Space built the spacecraft in Denver.
More information about Juno is available at https: /
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